Momogari writing

[Momogari]

Chapter 3

I decided to switch to first person. I'll have to go back and rewrite the first two chapters in first person, but I think that'll be better.

  Spoiler:  

One of my subordinates had found her way to the town, caused some sort of commotion, and was captured. I was…elated, frightened, shocked at their idiocy…and not sure which one to feel before the other.

We were now in some kind of store that sold clothes and I was thumbing through the racks with little attention on what I was doing. Who was it? Maybe Katherene was the most likely. Usually she had more sense, but there were times…

Vahro was in the middle of awkwardly chatting up the female shopkeep, which vaguely registered to me as somewhat endearing in a stupid, embarrassing way. The moment Vahro put on a shirt and stepped into the city he apparently went from the indispensable and godly competent attaché to a wishy-washy nervous boy.

…When did I start thinking of him as he?

…And why have I been staring at this tag for 30 seconds when I can’t damn well read.

I sighed. The garment I was looking at was a dress, too, and while I was used to dresses and likely why I was mindlessly perusing them, they were likely not the best thing to be buying right now. Given that I had no idea what the prices were, I should assume I can only buy one set of clothes right now. Time to get my head in the game.

While I had no idea what I and my subordinate—whoever it was—were going to be doing from now on, this wasn’t a sizeable town and we’d probably have to be traveling some more before we could find a way home. Perhaps we could stick to the road from now on rather than stumbling through ancient forests, but all the same a dress would not do in the present circumstance.

With some moral objection I pulled out a pair of some rough outdoor overalls. Holding it against my body, it seemed the right size. I stuck my hand in the legs and wiggled it around. It felt like it breathed ok. It had several compartments to carry things in.

I stared at it long and hard and then put it back. Nope, couldn’t do it.

A few tries later I spotted some darker slim pants and pulled those out. They had two pockets, at least, and were reasonably durable. I looked at the price tag and they actually had the same price as the overalls, though I still didn’t know what it meant. They would do.

After that I picked out a light but long-sleeved off-white blouse. The journey here had burned and then tanned my arms but I’d rather not deal with that anymore if I could avoid it, so something breezy without being delicate, and long-sleeved would be great.

The underwear I had would do as long as I could wash it every so often. I had heard Vahro ask for a bath at the inn but I didn’t know the word for laundry. Laundry…was a thing here, I hoped.

In any case, I had my clothes. Now to see how much to pay for them without revealing my linguistic inhibitions.

“Vahro,” I called. Vahro looked over hopefully and I beckoned him over. He smiled with what I couldn’t see anything but relief.

“What town teach Vahro?” I asked quietly.

Vahro shook his head apologetically. “No. ???? ???? ????”. Couldn’t get any of that but I understood that he hadn’t learned anything from the shopkeeper. I held up the clothes for him. “These are good?”

I watched as Vahro rubbed both garments’ fabric between his furry hands and nodded. “Yes. These are ????.”

“What?”

“These are good,” he switched to a word I knew.

“Ok. What money?”

“???? ???? money,”

“How much money?” I corrected.

Vahro checked the tags and was a bit surprised. “Four silver, three large.” So, practically all the money he had given me. I sighed, but I was probably not going to find better. But maybe that was mistaken. “These are bad?”

Vahro considered and I thought I saw his lips twitch upward for a fraction of a second. “No. These are good. ???? ???? Jess ???? ????”

I didn’t understand the rest of what he said, but it was clear I had my guide’s approval. I walked over to the lady and placed the two garments on the counter. She looked me up and down in my dirty tattered dress and didn’t bother to hide her scowl. With Vahro she had seemed either subtly put off by him or maybe slightly frightened of him or both, but with me she was openly dismissive. Bitch.

The lady said some things to me that sounded to me like idle chatter but she accepted my four silvers and three large coppers and seemed to think nothing of me not responding. She folded the clothes and handed them to me without a smile. I returned her not-smile with an exaggerated smile and thanked her. Vahro picked up his gigantic pack that he’d left by the entrance and we left the shop.

I wanted to put on the clothes right away as they were blessedly clean but there was no good way to request it while hiding my inability to speak the language, so I put them in my bag and when Vahro saw I was ready he turned and walked further down the road. I didn’t think this was the shortest way to the inn so perhaps he had another destination.

Vahro turned into a shop with bundles of dried herbs hanging all over the front. This one had a swinging door and he carefully sidled his pack in rather than leaving it outside. I followed him inside curiously.

The inside of the shop was laid out in a ring, the center being a tall chest of small drawers. Vahro headed left to he counter and not wanting my appearance to be a nuisance I wandered to the right. The far wall had hundreds of small bags and jars. Was this a medicine shop?

“Baba!” Vahro yelled. Apparently this was someone he knew, but standing on tiptoe to glance over the top of the cubby I saw no one at the counter. Vahro set his backpack down with a thud as someone shuffled in through squeaky saloon doors. I didn’t watch, but opened one of the cubby drawers to see what was inside.

“???? ????, ????? ????” an old lady’s voice said and Vahro and the lady started talking.

Once I realized that the flaky things in the drawer were some sort of dried reptile skin I recoiled and shut it quietly.

I heard Vahro going through the pack and pulling a number of things out as they talked. I was curious, and since this was someone Vahro knew I risked peeking around the corner. He had more stuff than I had seen him pack—oddly faceted rocks of a purple shimmering hue, a bundle of feathers, a pile of…fungus? I wasn’t sure. Each one he put on the counter the tiny old woman with a severely pinched mouth glanced at them and set them aside, giving a few some idle comments but mostly disinterestedly. Vahro must be selling things to this woman. Now Vahro was unstrapping the bundle of kirin bones. The woman frowned as he put the entire collection onto the counter.

“????? ???? ????” she said sourly.

“????? ???? kirin ???? ????” Vahro replied.

“Kirin? ????? ???? ???? kirin ???? ???? ???” The woman was either skeptical or simply nonplussed.

“???? ???? ????” Vahro opened the hanging leather bag and drew out one of the kirin antlers and held it up for her.

“???? ????? ????” she said, and held out her hand for the antler but Vahro shook his head and put it back in the bag. He wasn’t selling the antler?

The woman looked over the pile of bones critically. “???? ???? ????. ???? ??? ?????”

“Hmm….” Vahro hesitated, then nodded. “???? ????, ????? ???? ????. ???? ?????”

The woman pointed to some part of the back wall to the side of the counter and Vahro moved that way. I watched the lady look more closely at the bones and then take some sort of metal tool and scratch the surface of one. Then she noticed me. She said something loud and sharp at me and I came out from behind the store’s center storage cabinet and bowed without saying anything.

Vahro interjected. “Ahh, This ???? ????? Jess. ???? travelling ???? ????? ????”

“Jess, huh.” The woman looked me up and down in much the same way the seamstress had.

“????? ????? ? ???? ????” Vahro said more to the woman I didn’t understand and her eyes widened and then narrowed curiously. I was suddenly a bit worried about what he’d told her, but I could do nothing about it either way. “Jess,” Vahro said to me this time, “???? ok.” I gathered from the atmosphere and his tone with me that this was someone he more or less trusted.

“Hello. I am Jess,” I said to the woman.

“Mm,” the woman considered. “???? ???? Flor.”

“Baba Flor,” Vahro said. I wasn’t sure what that meant, though.

The woman retorted something at Vahro as he returned with a bag of something from the shelf. They talked some more and it seemed it would take some more time, so I turned and idly looked more around the shop. I wasn’t interested in opening any more drawers. Wandering around to the back wall where Vahro had picked something out, I looked over those too but they didn’t seem any different to me so I had no idea what any of it was.

I caught several instances of the words ‘kirin’ and also ‘silver’ once or twice, so I supposed they were haggling now. At one point Vahro looked at me contemplatively and I returned his stare dumbly and watched him nod and pull out one kirin hoof from the bag and put it on the counter also. That seemed to conclude the bargain and I idled over nearer to them as the old woman counted out coins. She put a gold coin on the counter. It was not one of the coins Vahro had shown me earlier.

Vahro saw me looking at it. “Small gold,” he taught.

“One small gold is ten large silver?” I asked.

And then a very strange thing happened. Vahro laughed. It wasn’t raucous per se, but it wasn’t restrained either. Did I get it wrong? I scowled. Can’t blame me for not knowing anything. “Yes,” Vahro said, beaming at me with a fangy grin. “Ten large silver is one small gold.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of his laughing at my being correct after all. Wasn’t it a fairly obvious assumption given that that the lesser currency followed the same pattern? I understood that he wasn’t intentionally ridiculing me, but I did still feel a bit ridiculous.

He said something to the woman as she finished laying out the coins and she replied and their conversation continued. I sighed and walked back around the cubby-cabinet and pushed open the door. I’d wait for him outside.



“She’s super smart, right?”

“Well, I can’t imagine you’re that good of a teacher, so I suppose she must be,” Baba replied tonelessly.

“She’s only been here ten days! And the first two she just slept!”

“By here you mean the forest.”

“Well, yeah. We only got to Thrush this morning.”

“Hmph. And where was she before that?”

“Well…I don’t know yet,” Vahro admitted. “It’s gotta be somewhere far from here though.”

“Hmph,” Baba grunted noncommittally.

“Oh, you know when she saw a eblet…”

“Vahro,” Baba interjected.

“Uh…yes?” Baba looked serious for once and I wondered what she was about to scold me about.

She looked pensive for a moment. “No, nevermind. Yes, I can see that she’s a bright young woman.”

I nodded but her dark look a second ago lingered in my mind. “Oh, that’s right, I wanted to ask you something.”

“About a certain incident a few days ago, I’d imagine,” Baba said under the strain of pulling herself back up onto her stool.

That surprised me. “Uh, yes. Umm… well, I don’t know much about it. I was just…”

“I imagine that girl’s involved somehow. Oh no, not like that. I don’t mean she’s the one that set fire to that house or anything, but two finely-dressed foreign women come to town within a few days of each other, it’s a pretty clear connection.”

Finely dressed? Mm, I suppose that dress has some elaborate decoration on it… “Did you see her at all? The other woman?”

“Oh no, I was in the shop all day. My daughter and her gaggle came over to include me in their tea time yesterday though so I heard all about it whether I wanted to or not.”

“It’s not interesting to you?” I asked.

She hesitated. “Well, alright, I’ll admit it’s interesting, even if its nothing that affects me.”

“What did they say about her?”

Baba waved a hand. “Oh what you’d imagine neighborhood busybodies would. Her unusual dress. Black and frilly as I recall, same as your girl’s out there. Her strange tongue, and then her wild hysterics. Apparently the girl went berserk, yelling and making a great big fuss in the middle of town. They said fire and explosions seemed to come out of nowhere in the middle of her tirade. I’d say rumor took a few too many turns to grow into that kind of nonsense, but it is true some young couple’s house burned down, so I’m not sure what to make of it, really. Maybe she kicked over a coal can or something and nobody saw it until the rumor had already started.”

“Why did she go berserk?”

Baba huffed. “Rat’s balls if I know. I doubt anyone except for those who saw it start know that.”

“Mmm…” I looked down at the counter, thinking. “Well, do you know what’s to be done with her?”

“Execution, apparently. Hmm. I think that’s tomorrow.”

“…Oh. But she didn’t kill anyone right?”

“There were injuries apparently. That’s probably less offense than the property damage she caused, but one of my daughter’s friends reasoned that the commissioner probably declared her crazy and too incompetent to pay off the debt and that the execution is a mercy to her. That does sound plausible to me.”

“Do you think she’s crazy?”

Baba took a long, hooded look at me. “Rumor has a life of its own. But if what I’ve heard is true, I’d say yeah. Whether she intentionally set fire to a building or not, her behavior does sound like something other than sane.”

Jess’s companion had gone crazy, huh… “I see…” How would Jess react?

As I contemplated, Baba stared at me critically. After a while, she asked. “What does that girl plan to do?”

I looked up at her. “What?! Nothing. I mean, I’m sure… that is…”

“Hmm. Well, if so then that’s good. But Vahro,” she said admonishingly. “there’s fire in that girl. I think you need to be careful.”

“…Fire?”

Baba waved him off angrily. “No, not literally, fool. Fire coming out of either of these girls’ hands is nonsense. I mean the way she stands. The way she looks at people. That girl’s not afraid of much, and people who aren’t afraid of much makes wise people wary. No, not that I’m wise per se, but I’m been fucked from behind too many times to not see things about people now. I assume this woman is Jess’s friend, right? Does she know her friend’s in prison?”

“Well, yes, I told her.”

Baba sighed heavily. “And how did she take it? Is she worried and weepy for her dear friend?”

I scratched my head. I could see what she was getting at, and in fact I knew that Jess was planning something, but I wasn’t going to say that. “Well…no. But Jess is fine. She’s not crazy. She’s a nice girl. Really.”

Baba gave me a look I couldn’t parse. “Well, you’ve spent more time with her, I guess. As long as you keep her out of trouble it’s fine. And if she does do something…hm, you’ve probably been noticed with her, so if something happens you go straight to the constable and tell them everything you know. I get that you think well of her, but you don’t need to be getting in trouble on her behalf, you hear?”

That felt awfully cold to me. Jess didn’t know anything about this country so it was only fair that I’d help her, but somehow I knew that wouldn’t fly with Baba. And I’d stop her from doing anything too dangerous before she did it, of course. It would be fine. Baba just didn’t know her. “It’ll be fine, Baba. I’ll keep her out of trouble.”

[PharaohAtem]

First person is the hardest to write. I had trouble reading books in that perspective, but then I read a series and loved it.

[Expendable]

I've read books where it alternated between narration and first person, and one where the first person alternated between two characters. At this stage, you can still experiment a bit, but get it sorted out. I like the different sized coins, but they sound like it's a ten-base system.

I think you may have started the story too far-forward, jumping into the action without showing what these persons' lives are like before they cross-over. You can't miss what you don't know about, right?

[Momogari]

Chapter 4

  Spoiler:  

I exited Baba’s shop with my pack considerably lighter and found Jess half-sitting on a barrel in front watching the foot traffic. She stood when I exited and looked at me expectantly.

I had plenty to tell her but I needed to consider how best to approach that. For now, I definitely didn’t want to talk to her where Baba could overhear, but more so I felt like I needed to think through some things myself anyway.

And I had a small gold! My hunting trip may have been cut short but there are times I only bring back one or two large silvers’ worth. And I still had 3 dark kirin hooves and two dark kirin antlers to sell once I returned to Jennewantst. I considered whether I should hold onto the gold coin or exchange it for a letter of credit. Exchanging would be safer—I could pay to have a copy of the letter sent to Jennewantst or wherever, thereby reducing my risk of it being stolen. I was less of a target than most humans, granted, but bandit groups could still easily target me. I could then usually run away faster than they could, but when they had horses it was a different story.

So after a moment of consideration, I decided to deposit my gold.

I turned back to Jess to see if she was ready to follow. She was, so I turned to start walking.

“Vahro, Jess, go bed building?” Jess asked.

I stopped and tried to make sense of that. Bed building. The inn. Of course.

“Ah, not yet. I have another errand to do. After that, I guess. Umm. Later. We’ll go to the inn later,” I said. “Oh, and ‘bed building’ is ‘inn’.”

“Inn,” Jess repeated. I nodded and moved to turn but Jess continued. “No, Jess go inn.”

“You want to go back to the inn now?”

Jess mimed the two of them splitting up. Oh. Could she find her way back? Actually…why did she need to split up right now? She couldn’t be planning… This gave me a sudden uneasy feeling.

“I’ll go with you,” I replied cheerfully, and turned towards the inn.



As Vahro turned towards the inn, I furrowed my brow. I didn’t mean to inconvenience him further if he still had business to attend to. Apart from it feeling rude, I was bluntly aware how dependent on him I was and didn’t want him getting annoyed with me. But he had gone several paces decisively already so apparently the conversation, such as it was, was over, and that we were heading back to the inn together. Not that that was a bad thing. Given my limitations, there was only so much I could figure out on my own while being deaf and/or mute, and there were desperately things I needed to do.

As I caught up with him, I considered whether he had realized that and was being conscious of my needs. No, not necessarily. Maybe being alone and forced to talk to others would pose a larger inconvenience to him than putting off his business for now.

We cut through a large road and was soon in front of the inn. Vahro slowed outside and slung his backpack off onto the porch, and I realized I had misunderstood his intentions and he really didn’t understand much at all.

“Vahro,” I motioned him to follow and walked inside and up the stairs to my room.

I left the door open for Vahro to hesitantly come in while I opened my pack and withdrew my new clothes. I stood up and looked at him.

After several iterations of ‘Vahro, teach.’ I learned the words for clothes, the washing of clothes, where, and how. In the middle of this I caught both surprise and sheepish embarrassment from him, which in the back of my mind I used to conclude it must be somehow improper for me to discuss such things as bathing and laundry, but there was nothing I could do about it, so he’d live with it. As to the actual subject matter, it turned out Vahro didn’t know either, so he went to ask the innkeeper.

Ten minutes later I was naked in the backyard concealed only by a rather flimsy cloth screen. The bath wasn’t even a bath either, but a bucket of hazy water and a rag. At least the ground was covered with wood slats and there was a stool so I wasn’t standing in the dirt, but still. This was a travesty. Considering the look of the water I should be just as glad that I wasn’t putting my body in it, but somehow that didn’t help.

I scrubbed myself, and though at first I imagined myself only achieving semi-cleanliness, I felt so much better than I decided that for all intents and purposes, I was perfectly clean. I threw on my new pants and shirt with my broken-in but still very nice shoes and exited the outdoor bathing stall with my dress and underwear and walked over to the laundry tubs.

Tattered though my dress was, it was still a change of clothes I didn’t have otherwise, so I washed it using the washboard. My underwear was still faring ok for now.

Thus, an hour after I had left the room to bathe and launder my clothes, I went back up the stairs to my room. I found it locked, but I had the key, so I opened it. Vahro wasn’t around. I assumed he had left to take care of his business.

I put my wet panties, bra, and shift onto one of the beds—I didn’t want to leave them outside, after all, and draped my dress over the end of that bed. The shutters were slatted to let in light but I Opened them fully to help them dry.

Leaning against the sill and watching the foot traffic go by, I considered what I was going to do now. This town felt better than the forest had. There was no breeze still, but it was either the temperature or humidity was a bit less unbearable. Or had I simply gotten used to it? I’d been in this world for…eight days? No, nine, considering I’d fallen unconscious and probably lost a day. By now my parents had probably either escaped or had been captured. Or…another possibility that I didn’t want to countenance is that they put up a resistance. After a large loss such as we had probably suffered, I didn’t think we had the resources for that to be effective. My father was a pragmatic person but also a fiercely loyal one. I couldn’t say one way or another. In any case, I couldn’t do anything about any of it yet.

And, here and now, one of my squad members was captured somewhere in the city. My magical reserves were enough that I wasn’t too worried about mounting a rescue effort, but I did need to find out where they were, and for that I needed Vahro.

Thinking I’d have to wait until he returned, I stretched my arms high above my head and rolled my shoulders with a pleased groan.

“Jess.” I looked down to see Vahro looking up at me. He didn’t have his pack on his back. Come to think of it, the covered porch was beneath my window; had he been waiting there this entire time? I wondered what his intentions were for a moment but he smiled and said “???? ????? go ?????” which was not helpful at all. His accompanied pointing down the street was more so.

But hmm. Did I want to put my wet underwear on and go back out? Umm, not really. I suppose I could go commando for a few hours. Then I looked down at my shirt and the fabric was thin enough that my nipples definitely poked through. It probably wasn’t too visible from street level so hanging out the window wasn’t too bad, but going out like that…

Instead I motioned for Vahro to come upstairs. He nodded and a few moments later he came into the room and set his pack down in the corner as I sat on the bed. He noticed my underwear on the other bed and stared a bit before apparently deciding they weren’t anything to worry about, and made to sit on the floor, but I shook my head and patted the foot of my bed. He hesitated, but skulked onto the bed with laughably dainty grace and sat in seiza as I turned and faced him with my back leaning against the headboard.

I needed to communicate better with this person, and the sooner the better. That would take some serious work, but I also didn’t want him to be put off by it and abandon me.

One of a noble’s primary duties, for better or worse, was socializing. I was 18 years old now which meant I had been attending parties for 6 years and expected to hold my own socially for 3 years. In many circumstances a noble’s conversations were idle pleasantries and careful phrasing with acquaintances or other dignitaries with which you didn’t need anything directly from, but also couldn’t offend. But just as often, friends and partners were nurtured carefully. Of course as girls we had our own goals, but even beyond childhood, noble sons and daughters were expected to carry the aspirations of their house and take part in its strategy, and socializing was a large part of the exercise of that strategy.

It seems I needed to draw on that now. Making a friend was about listening and understanding, and I was also aware that I had overridden him and asked him to come up to the room instead of us going to do whatever he had wanted to do. And starting casually was best anyway, so, yes, striking on the topic, I decided to ask him what he was going to do now.

“Vahro…” I immediately halted.

Socializing is a lot harder when you don’t speak the language.

“…teach?” I asked sheepishly.

Vahro gave an awkward smile and nodded.



Over the next hour, my plan of not frustrating Vahro did not pan out well. Trying to explain to someone that you wanted to know how to express the past, present, and future through gestures and drawing was a challenge to say the least.

Up until then I think I hadn’t seen Vahro truly frustrated, but my own frustration combined with my insistence on him teaching something in particular but my inability to express what that was ultimately put him in something of a huff too, but he stuck with it. In hindsight I shouldn’t have pushed him this far but at the time I was singularly focused on figuring this out because it was what I needed to converse with him better.

Eventually there came a point that I thought he may have caught on. I wasn’t sure until he went through a story of eating on the first day, eating on the second day, and eating on the third day, and when he conjugated each verb for me and I realized he had caught on and I jumped at him, held his shoulders and yelled excitedly and for a brief moment we both celebrated.

I learned ate, eating, to eat, will eat. Gone, going, to go, will go. Doing, do, to do, will do. Excitedly I saw the pattern and tried to think of another verb I knew. Slept, sleeping, to sleep, will sleep. He affirmed ecstatically and I was fulfilled. He gave some more detail for a time and in the process I also learned ‘now’, ‘then’ in the past, and ‘then’ in the future.

But that was half the battle. I took myself off my pacing of the room and set on the floor. Vahro was also sitting on the floor, looking obviously much more relaxed now. Belatedly I realized that that exercise had probably strengthened our bond as much as I had wanted to from the start. But even so. I took a deep breath.

“Vahro,” I started. “Thank you.”

Vahro nodded.

“What will you do now?” I asked.

“????? ????? gold ??????” he answered.

I wasn’t about to ask for a vocabulary lesson right now. He wanted to do something with gold coins, or more likely the one he had now. He wanted to buy something then?

I decided to ask for a minor vocabulary lesson for “buy” and then asked what he wanted to buy.

He shook his head though and was troubled for how to explain. But then he stood up. “We’ll go,” he said, and I was pleased I understood it.

I got up and checked my bra and it was…slightly damp but I’d live with it. Everything else could stay drying for now. I picked it up as he was picking up his pack and saw him out of the room so I could put it on. Different species we may be, but it still felt right to maintain at least some decorum.



Walking past a food stall, my stomach complained and Vahro ended up treating me. The sandwich I received was a questionable affair and biting into it, it tasted vaguely fishy even though I was near certain there were no large bodies of water nearby. The bread was interesting, being somehow simultaneously grainy, grassy, and fluffy, and it had lettuce in it as well but frankly I wasn’t too impressed with the meat.

“Vahro, what is this?” I asked as we walked. Vahro had gotten one too and seemed to have no complaints.

“Mmm…” he considered. “Coryo.” Swallowing, he named what was probably a creature I didn’t know yet.

Being as poor as I was, I wasn’t going to waste food, so I finished it.

As I at the last piece of bread and dusted off my hands I noted that Vahro was indeed heading towards the large building in front of us. The building a single story, so shorter than our inn, but it sprawled over a city block and I would not have expected such a large building in such a small town. It must be the largest. Despite its size, it looked like any other building in this town, dark wood planks lining the exterior. The building seemed to have multiple entrances, though the entrance Vahro was aiming for was clearly an entrance for the general public while the others were not. Still, every entrance was guarded. I noticed weapons for the first time in this world—the guards each carried both a broadsword and a trident swordbreaker. They were armored, uniformly but in a worn and dusty blue that looked to be mostly leather. Given the armed and uniformed guards, I reasoned that this must be some government facility.

The moment I thought that, something else occurred to me. Maybe somewhere in this building was where my subordinate was being held. But the building had a bit too much foot traffic to be merely a prison. Following Vahro through the door into a lobby area, I noticed that first, the entire counter was behind metal bars, and that second, each station had privacy screens. Vahro waited for half a minute before a window became free and stepped up to the counter. I followed, remembering that Vahro had intended to show me what the gold was for.

The staffperson was a pretty young woman and I immediately noticed her distinctly pointed ears. An elf? No, it could simply be a subracial trait.

I could follow none of the conversation but I watched as Vahro was presented with a form—with paper; paper did exist in this world after all—and Vahro filled it out. Hm. Vahro could write. Oh yes, I recalled him reading the price tags in the clothing shop earlier, so it wasn’t actually the first evidence I’d had that he was literate, but it was the first time I’d actually noticed and I realized I couldn’t help but be somewhat surprised.

No, if everyone in this town had to use this office and they all had to fill out paperwork—or even if only a portion of them had to—then perhaps this world actually had a fair literacy rate even though this town was…how should I say. Rustic.

Once Vahro had filled out the small form he took out his gold coin and gave it to the pointy-eared girl. The girl wrote additional things on the form and then folded the paper and ripped it evenly down the crease she had made. She handed the smaller piece of paper to Vahro, and Vahro put it inside a delicate little leather folio that looked like it held several others just like it.

Of course this was a bank. Everything made perfect sense now. That also dashed my hopes of this being where my squad member was being held. Still, the building was very large for being a bank.

After exiting the bank, Vahro led me around the corner and to a side of the street without much people. He utilized drawing on a piece of leather again to describe the point of the bank but I already had figured out what it was for the most part. What did surprise me is that the bank was inter-municipal and that he could withdraw the money in a different city. This country’s financial infrastructure must be more developed than I had assumed.

What I also got from that exchange was that Vahro visited other places besides this one. I realized his occupation, at least insofar as I could tell, was hunting dangerous places for salable materials, but asking more about his travels revealed that he was somewhat migratory as well and only came to this town in the summer. I asked to see a map and he agreed to buy one later.

Just then one of the side doors in the bank opened and three uniformed soldiers strolled out. They nodded to the one sitting on the stool guarding the door and without any words they turned down the street and passed the two of us. The three men were business-like but their gait told me they had no particular aim. A patrol? Would a bank be patrolling the streets?

“Vahro, teach.”



I hadn’t realized my mistake in bringing her here until Jess said that. Yes, this same place was the place where her friend was likely being held, and she place she would be executed tomorrow. The reason for this was that in small frontier towns like Thrush, it was convenient to have all governmental functions in a single building. Thus, the postal service, the royal bank, the Town Commissioner and the constabulary all operated from this very building, called the Commissary. For the town and the country’s interest therein to be in the same place, it made it easier to provide security. At the same time, for those who would interfere with any of its functions, it raised the level of criminal offense quite severely. The security meant that Jess wouldn’t be able to do anything to help her friend. And maybe it was best that she saw that now.

For Thrush, I drew a collection of buildings but left the Commissary building noticeable in the center. I drew the constables before the real bodies they represented disappeared around a corner, and then a circle around the city, pointing out vocabulary to her as I did so. I drew a second city with a rough approximation of the Count’s castle. I drew a line from the Count’s castle to the Commissary and then from the Commissary to the constables and then circled Thrush again.

She drew the woman in the cage inside the Commissary. I nodded. “Friend,” I taught her.

“How much constables?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Lots.” I mimicked many just to get the point across. For the size of the town I imagined it was somewhere between 10 and 20, but I didn’t say that.

“Constables sleep there?”

I actually had no idea. Should I lie? No, if she found out differently once she knew the language better it might cause a rift between us. “I don’t know. But they’re always there.”

She contemplatively looked at the building and surreptitiously at the guard at the side gate.

“Jess.” I put a hand on top of her head and she looked at me, surprised at the contact. “No. It’s dangerous.” I shook my head. “There’s nothing you can do.”

She considered that with a blank face. “I don’t do. What constables do friend?”

I couldn’t say straight out that she was going to die. Jess needed to know first that her friend had gone crazy. “Let’s go see,” I said, and stood up.

Remembering that Carth had mentioned the name of the person whose house had burned down, I first walked to the smithy and asked him where it was. With the directions in mind, I led her there.

The place was near the east-west trade road just within a residential area. I could smell the char before it came into view. It wasn’t the entire house that had burned down, but definitely more than half of it and enough that it was probably untenable—maybe even unsafe—to live in. The neighboring house had been damaged as well, though apart from a few fresh planks of wood around the singe marks, it seemed hale enough.

As we neared, Jess walked ahead of me and put her hands on the ground. I could see why. The ground had been churned, the hard-packed dirt street having been ripped up and then tamped down again with a great many feet afterwards. But what would have ripped up the ground? Even if a woman went berserk, and even if a fire had been started, it seemed like neither of those would be likely to do damage to a road. Perhaps something more had happened.

Looking around, I noticed that we were attracting some scowls from the neighbors. The neighbors might know more, but it didn’t seem like we were welcome here. In any case, the operative truth wasn’t likely to change from a few interesting details.

“Jess,” I said. She looked up. “Let’s go back to the inn now.”

“No. Later,” she said. She stood up and started walking towards the burnt shell of a house. I glanced around at the hostile neighborhood and caught up to her, putting a hand on her shoulder before she could reach it. “Jess,” I said quietly. “Let’s go back to the inn. Now.”

My quiet tone seemed to be what made her look around and notice the people staring at them. “Ok,” she relented, and walked towards the trade road. I sighed in relief and followed her.



When we returned to the inn that evening I joined her in her room because I had things I had to tell her.

“Tomorrow,” I started as seriously and as calmingly as I could manage, “your friend will die.”

“’Die’?” she asked. I mimicked my head being chopped off.

She frowned with concern and was quiet for a moment. I had expected her to first ask why, but that was not the case.

“Where friend die tomorrow?” she asked me seriously. The worry didn’t leave her face, though.

“The Commissary,” I replied. It was standard to do executions out of sight rather than making a spectacle of them. “Jess,” I said more urgently. “Your friend… she lost her mind. Um.” I knew she wouldn’t get that. “Head. Bad.” I unfocused my eyes and lolled my tongue stupidly. It was disrespectful but I had no other way to communicate it.

She shook her head at me, puzzled. I went through several attempts before she seemed to understand. The look of concern on her face deepened and it definitely gave her pause.



Afterwards I headed out to find somewhere to sleep myself. Normally I’d have walked out of town and made camp in the outskirts, but I wanted to stay near the inn. It was in a dense area of town, however. After wandering around a bit, I noticed the inn had a small stable attached on one side in the back corner. It was free of animals, and no one was watching it. It might cause trouble with the innkeeper if he found me there in the morning. But would he have business here, with no animals? It was likely just a stable for guests’ pack animals. I decided to risk it. I went into one stall, put my pack against the inner corner, laid out my bedroll and simply laid on top of it.

I was alone with my thoughts, just as I had left her alone with hers. What was she feeling right now? I realized there was very little I could do for her, and it hurt.

I had trouble falling asleep because of the noise. People moving around in the inn. People softly talking, both inside and outside. Footsteps on the road. Town noise. After a while of frustration I stood up and leaned against the half-wall of the stable stall in the alley, considering whether I should find somewhere outside the city after all.

To my right someone walked quickly by the alley mouth on the road. I had been hearing footsteps of nighttime passers-by so in and of itself it wasn’t strange, but the brief memory of long brunette hair made me blink. Oh no….

Sighing, I left my pack in the stall and shadowed her.

As expected Jess made a near-beeline for the Commissary. She was moving quickly but without drawing attention and wasn’t getting too close to anyone. I followed her a block or so back. As we came to the square with the Commissary, she stepped into an alleyway and I did the same, watching to see what she would do. We were on the same side as we had exited this afternoon, near the side door where the constables had exited. There was a guard on the stool there now, of course. It was probably a different one, and the hanging lantern on the side of the door had been lit, and in the quarter-moon night, it declared a solitary patch of somethingness in the sea of black. My eyesight was better than humans, of course, but…come to think of it, Jess was moving rather well in the dark. Her eyesight must be good as well.

For a while I watched her watch the Commissary. Eventually she decided to move, and I followed her in a wide circuit around the building. She was looking for unguarded entrances, probably, but of course there wouldn’t be any. She stayed more than 5 minutes at each location before moving on, making her reconnaissance last a little more than an hour. She was patient, but I knew she wouldn’t find a way in.

She doubled back. She passed directly in front of the planters I was borrowing and made her way to a new hiding place, but it was a place that was in the middle of the wall between two entrances. Curious, I waited. Jess didn’t move. Was she…simply emotional and wondering how to give up? I felt for her and considered joining her but I didn’t want to let her know I’d been secretly watching her, and I might not be a welcome party to her grief right now. So I simply waited for her to turn back to the inn. It was taking quite a while, but that didn’t surprise me either, given how strong-willed she was.

But she did not. In my empathetic musings my brain was slow to realize what was happening as she went straight to the wall and jumped up it, grasping the edge of the roof and pulling herself up.

“…What? What?!” I exclaimed quietly to myself. “Oh no. No no no.” I looked to the nearest guard post but he hadn’t noticed anything. When I turned back Jess was already moving along the roof further in, soon to be out of my sight. “No. Oh Jess. Ungggh,” What should I do? I needed to stop her. Yes, I had to stop her. Oh no. What am I doing?

Without really preparing myself at all, I vaulted myself up onto the roof as well. This was not good. I quickly looked around for Jess but she wasn’t there! I swiveled my head frantically. There was a courtyard, though, 20 feet ahead. Had she entered the courtyard? She must have. Inwardly whimpering, I crept forward carefully trying not to make sounds on the roof. This just got worse and worse. She’d be caught, and probably taken to the county seat as a prisoner and spend the next decade in a cell, and I was following her, and, ok, I could probably get away but I was recognizeable in this town so I wouldn’t ever be able to come back, and what was that girl doing?

I didn’t see her right away but I laid down on my belly and edged myself flatly to the edge of the awning to peer under it. I flinched back as I noticed a guard on another stool, but he hadn’t noticed me. But I didn’t see Jess. Where had she gone? I sniffed around the awning. Her scent was next to mine, so she had come this way for sure. But I couldn’t jump down or the guard would see me. How had Jess gotten by him?

After panicking in confusion for a moment, I watched the guard enough to notice him heave a slow, heavy sigh. Wait…he’s asleep?! Ok, that made sense, but I did feel kind of stupid now. And Jess had gotten a good head start, wherever she had disappeared to. No one else was coming for now, so I steeled myself for ruining my future in Thrush town and dropped quietly into the courtyard. I hadn’t woken the guard, so put my nose to the ground and followed her scent. She had entered this door, then. It was a sliding door, which I slid open enough to peek inside. It was a hallway, and there was no one inside, nor could I hear anyone, so I continued.

I had only rounded one corner when I heard some not-stealthy footsteps and in a panic I slipped into a room until the guard passed. The guard went outside and from the sound, it seemed they waited there. Needing to find Jess quickly before she got caught, I decided to exit the room and continue her trail, which I did with a nervous speed now. Her scent led me down several halls down the length of the building, and I dodged two more guards along the way. Just then I heard someone yelling. They found her! But it was in the opposite direction! Had she turned around? Had she done a full circuit?

“What’s going on?” a muffled guard’s voiced asked another somewhere nearby.

“I don’t know. Should we check it out?”

“Whatever. Someone else will deal with it, right?”

“Probably. Well, I’ll go see what’s up anyway.”

The guard that said this was now moving in my direction, so I hid in a closet for him to pass. I needed to get around him and get to the scene quicker, but there was no way to do that now.

“What? Who…” the guard who had stayed nearby had been surprised by something, and then I heard a bodily thump. The guard who had passed hadn’t noticed so I exited quickly and ran to where the noise had come from. I had to be cautious with doors, but I entered a room which was lit by one lantern and had one wall of iron bars. This was the jail area for sure then. I didn’t see the other guard so I kept following the scent. It led to a side room, and I quickly went through it and stifled a yelp as Jess appeared right in front of me as she was trying to exit the room.

I shook my surprise and relief off. “What are you doing, Jess?! We have to get out of here. This is a national facility! You can’t get caught here!” I whispered this frantically. I then looked into the room and saw a blue-clad guard slumped in a chair in front of a desk, positioned as if he were sleeping on the job. I didn’t stop to process this, and reached for her hand to lead her to safety, but she held fast.

“Thank you, Vahro. Later. I do this.” She moved past me and towards the gate that led to the jail cells.

“Do what?! We need to leave now!” I exclaimed as she shuffled through keys on a keyring, trying each one in the lock. One clicked and the gate opened, and Jess entered. I shook my head and ran after her. “Jess! This is dangerous!” I called after her in a frantic whisper.

She walked to the left down the hall of cells. The cells were similarly iron-barred and not all were empty. For each one that was occupied, she paused in front of the cell, peering inside.

One prisoner was awake. “Who’s that?” a man said from the cell, peering at them. Ah, it was still too dark for humans to see. Wait, how was Jess seeing then? Jess made no response to the man and moved on. She cleared the end of the cell.

In the distance, I could still hear shouting. Apparently there had been a convenient distraction, which was likely the only reason we hadn’t been caught yet. It wouldn’t last forever though.

But we were in the jail cells. In an instant my thoughts turned. Wait…could she actually pull this off right now? Since we were already here, maybe we really could just rescue her friend and escape. But her friend was crazy. There’s no telling how that would go. There was also no telling what physical state she was in. In any case, we needed to work quickly and figure out the truth of the matter before anyone came.

“I’ll check the other way!” I said quietly, and ran back down the hall to check the cells on the other side.

I looked in each cell. There were two more male prisoners and the rest were empty. I turned around and saw her standing at an empty cell on this side that I had just checked. When I returned she muttered something in her language and I noticed the focus of her attention that I had missed. The cell door was…broken? The lock mechanism seemed to have been cut down the middle, clean through its mechanisms, which were hanging loosely inside it. The edges of the tear had a curl to them like leather. I had no idea what sort of tool could do that to tempered iron.

While I was contemplating this in uncertain fear, Jess turned to me. In contrast to the cold pit in my chest, Jess had a satisfied smile. “Ok, Vahro. We’ll go now.”

edit: slight retcon in the second to last paragraph.

First person is the hardest to write.

Kinda, yeah.
I've always had the inclination to write in second person but still present the perspective of a single character at a time. I feel like I read that a lot, but then I've been reading a lot of LNs lately that don't, and switch perspectives often, or use second person but describe things the character doesn't notice. I mean, I guess it's easy to do that in second person and I probably do anyway, but you can't do that in first person so it's kinda limited.

I've read books where it alternated between narration and first person, and one where the first person alternated between two characters. At this stage, you can still experiment a bit, but get it sorted out.

You don't like first person switching perspectives?
I've read some books that do that intentionally. By the Grace of the Gods LN is written in first person but switches characters, and I think it does that alright.
So far that's my intention right now.

I think you may have started the story too far-forward, jumping into the action without showing what these persons' lives are like before they cross-over. You can't miss what you don't know about, right?

I understand that, but it's an isekai base. The characters' pasts are definitely relevant but I want the frame of the story to start where it does, since it's not just a character exercise. That said, I didn't feel like doing something flimsy like Truck-kun and made it more interesting and gave at least Jess some strong motivations but even so. I think it's outside the scope. I figure just like you learn about someone over time, the characters' pasts can be revealed through the context of the present. I did start to do that in this next chapter.
Vahro on the other hand...honestly I still need to come up with his backstory lol.

[Momogari]

Chapter 5

  Spoiler:  

I quickly exited the jail cells, Vahro following behind me. When I had entered earlier I had thanked my luck for something having distracted the guards—I couldn’t have afforded a big enough distraction myself, and even if I had it probably could only have taken the form of fire and I didn’t want to burn down the building. Now though, I had a fairly good idea that the commotion very much concerned me. I had sharpened not only my night vision but gave myself aetheric sense as well, which is why I had seen the wispy mana traces on the bent cell lock. Seeing the residues and how the metal had been folded back, I was now fairly certain who it was, also.

I listened and peeked through the door to the hall before entering it, but no one was present, so I moved quickly. I had a vague idea of where I was, so I headed for the closest door to the courtyard. My akashic link that I still had active clued me into the presence of a human just beyond the door, but after confirming my likely position I was certain it was the first guard I had put to sleep earlier. I quietly slid the door open, but his head was still slumped. Now exposed to the outside, the shouting across the way was clearer and I could tell it was in the opposite corner of the Commissary.

I looked left, looked right around the guard who was still sleeping through the commotion, and then stepped out. Putting a boost into my legs, I jumped up onto the awning and climbed onto the roof once more.

As Vahro climbed up behind me I considered whether I should go directly towards the commotion but decided against it. There were more than several voices shouting and I didn’t want to get into a mess I couldn’t get out of. Plus, if she were over there still it would not be just shouting. So I headed for the wall exterior where I’d first entered, and hopped down and quickly crossed into the dark alleys across the street.

I turned to wait for Vahro but he was right behind me. He seemed like he was going to say something but I was in a hurry. I turned and hurried into the parallel street to try to circle around to where the scene was taking place.

A minute of stop-and-go running later, I found myself on the edge of the commotion. There were several guards running around with lanterns and their swordbreakers in hand. Based on their gestures they were frantically searching for someone. It was dangerous this close, and to avoid one guard I quickly moved further into the search area temporarily. From here I could see the Commissary wall, and my eyes widened.

There was a hole in the side of the building. The wall was not simply wood either, unlike most of the building, but a layer of wood and then a layer of brick. My circuit of the Commissary earlier had detected something was different about these walls in particular, but I hadn’t been sure why or what it was. The hole in the wall, though, went through both brick and wood, and was large enough for a person to jump through. The bricks seemed to have been compressed outward to open the gap and the wooden planks were simply split and then forced outward until they had cracked and bent along splintered folds.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked back at Vahro. For a moment I assumed I was about to hear another nervous plea to flee, but his eyes were piercing and businesslike. He beckoned me to follow and on the spur of the moment I decided I would. We waited for our chance and split across the street and hid again. The search area was expanding all around us, but we managed to make it out. Vahro kept moving quickly though, following a circuitous route that I didn’t understand. He ducked into an alley once only to look around on the ground and then exit back the way he came before continuing. We were definitely getting further and further away from both the Commissary and the inn. I couldn’t see what he was looking at, but he seemed to have the trail.

A few minutes later we reached the edge of the city and Vahro followed straight off the road and into the brush. Off the road, now I noticed deep footprints that he was following.

“?????? Friend ??????” Vahro said with a frown. I think he had expected to see her by now. But she was clearly moving with plenty of body enhancement. “????? ??????” Vahro said, and picked up the pace.

At this point, my feet started to ache again. I’d toughened up on the hike to town but I had been on my feet almost all day and all night still, and normally would have long since massaged my feet and been in bed. I flagged behind.

Vahro noticed and stopped for me. He looked back into the distance, searching the lightly-wooded plains with dotted farms for any sign of the object of our pursuit. It was still dark though, and even magically enhanced night vision could only do so much. When I caught up to Vahro he looked at me and considered. Then he knelt down facing away from me, his arms held back. For a moment I stared at him dumbly, and he gestured.

“Are you serious right now?” I said in my own language through panting breaths. Jessimus Destrelle of the house of February was not to be carried on piggy back.

But my squad member was getting away and this was my only chance to meet up with her before she disappeared, and I wouldn’t keep up otherwise. Jessimus Destrelle of the house of February would ride piggy back this one time and this one time only.

Vahro’s back was hot to the touch as I awkwardly climbed on. At least I was wearing pants now, or trying to straddle him would be impossible. I gave a surprised yelp as his paws moved to grip my rear end, but I had no time to object to the indignity before he rose and started running.

I had known Vahro would be faster this way, but the boost in speed was shocking even so. My heart clenched as the landscape sped by, thinking surely I could not survive a fall at this speed. My hands had initially only gripped his shoulders but in fear I was compelled to wrap my arms around and grip his chest, pressing myself as tight as I could onto his back. I do not think I could have managed enough body enhancement to move at this speed. Perhaps no one in my squad could. Vahro…Vahro’s species was a frightening display of power.

Vahro took a winding route that avoided farms. I assumed he was still following the trail though how he could see the footprints so quickly even through the larger patches of wild grass we went through, I had no idea. I didn’t know how long we ran as it seemed an eternity to me either way. After a time I closed my eyes and simply focused on breathing, entrusting myself to his conveyance.

“????? Friend ?????? ?????” Vahro said something to me and when I looked ahead I saw the silhouette of a stand of trees against the night sky.

“Vahro stop,” I replied. He slowed down and stopped, and I slid off his back and immediately crumpled into the grass. He knelt down. “Jess ????? ok?”

“Yes, I’m ok. Thank you.” I tried to stand up and my legs didn’t have strength yet. Vahro moved to help me up but I waved him off, took a deep breath, and pushed myself up. I had to take a moment to re-set my night vision as my concentration had fallen, but once I was steady, I straightened my back and walked towards the trees ahead. Vahro followed behind me.

I saw no sign of her. There was nothing obvious like a campfire. I walked past several trees and was fully inside the copse before stopping. I didn’t know if she could see me or know who I was in the dark, but I was certain that, as long as Vahro hadn’t actually lost the trail and there was no one here at all, that the person we had been following was indeed who I thought it was.

“Tatiana Favorians,” I called loudly to the trees, “the winds speed our grace! I await your duty and honor.”

Presently I heard running and the woman presented herself before me. Rather than the decorum of ‘duty and honor’, though, her posture and face was set in shock. “Lady February! Is it really you?!”

I couldn’t help but smiling. “Yes, Tatiana, it is me.”

I saw that Tatiana was wearing the same clothes as she had during the battle with the heroes—a short-skirted dress split for riding with vinyl trousers beneath. Her clothes were as dirty and tattered—more so, actually, than my dress back at the inn was. Her shoes were different, though. Her short and normally delicately thin brown hair was messy and clearly in need of washing, but I could forgive her that. It was a relief to see her.

Tatiana came forward and knelt before me. “The earth answers our bond. My service is yours to dispense.”

I nodded in judicial acceptance of her part of the summoning ritual before continuing more casually. “Be that as it may, we are far from home and you’re the first one I’ve found. Have you met any others?”

Tatiana rose as I spoke and nodded gravely. “I was with Marelle.”

I furrowed my brow. “What happened?”

“She was captured. I was too, actually. I only escaped just now.”

“I know. But Marelle is no longer with you. When did you part ways?”

“Two days ago. Some nobles came and took her from the village jail. I was sick at the time, so they left me there.

I frowned worriedly. “You were sick?”

“Some magical ailment I picked up from a monster in the forest. I was laid out, unfortunately. I only started recovering yesterday. I vaguely remember Marelle being taken from her cell, but I don’t know… LOOK OUT!”

Tatiana suddenly yelled and thrust out her hand at something behind me. I spun and saw Vahro in the dim light. “Tatiania, no! He’s a friend.”

“What? ‘He’? That? What is that…he?” Tatiana put her hand down almost as an afterthought.

“His name is Vahro, and he’s at minimum a sapient being. A rather intelligent one, in fact.”

“Uh…ok,” Tatiana said disorientedly.

I motioned for Vahro to come closer and Tatiana flinched back as he did so. I then remembered the feeling of having a giant wolf man tower over you. I had gotten used to it. “Vahro, this is Tatiana. A friend.” I wasn’t sure if ‘friend’ was the right term in his language but it was the one he had used for her so friend it would be.

“????? ??????” Vahro seemed to return the greeting to Tatiana.

I turned back to Tatiania to see an even more shocked look on her face, directed at me. “For now,” I said, “let’s rest and I will hear the rest of your story.”

“Right. I was setting up camp, such as it is, over here. If you’ll follow me, my lady.”

We followed her a little deeper into the stand of trees and I noticed a gigantic golden warhammer standing upright, mallet side down, on the ground. I made no mention of it yet and Tatiana sat down in the dirt and leaned back against a tree, and I did the same. Vahro laid on the ground a short distance away and closed his eyes, and, having settled, I cancelled my night vision.

“What do you remember about Marelle being taken?” I asked.

“Not much, I’m afraid. I was delirious and barely conscious at the time. I remember the people taking her having heavily embroidered robes, and I know Marelle said something to me, but I can’t remember what.”

“How was it that you were so incapacitated? Surely you could have simply healed yourself?”

“No, the thing blocked my mana control. I couldn’t even light a fire for a week.”

“What was it?”

“Some monkey-like thing. It bit me.”

“For a week, you say? What did you do?”

“Marelle dragged me out of the forest. Sometimes I could walk, and sometimes I couldn’t. It was…we had a rough time of it. I had no idea what was going on. Maybe Marelle cast a location spell and knew where we were going, but my memory is all a blur of wandering the woods for days. Marelle didn’t fare too well either I think. She was breaking down. I mean, I was breaking down physically… and mentally, I guess, but she was breaking down emotionally. When I remember the battle…we probably didn’t win that, did we? You know Marelle’s husband was Royal Guard.”

That’s right, I remembered. “Yes. I can only imagine the stress she’s under now.”

“Marelle eventually got me to that village but something went wrong and she got into a fight. I don’t know what happened but there she started casting and I think a building caught fire, but we were overwhelmed and I remember being taken to that jail after that.

“I see. So that was Marelle, then.”

“You know about it?”

“Yes, the locals were rather upset by it.”

“My lady, obviously you speak some of the language. But this is another world, is it not?” Tatiana’s eyes widened. “Surely you couldn’t have managed an akashic link for the language…”

“No, nothing of the sort. I got lucky and ran into Vahro when I arrived, and he’s taught me some of the local language.” An akashic link of that power, to pull knowledge directly from the world itself, may have been possible for a full circle that included experts in akashic links, not to mention linguistics, but I had neither the mana pool or either of the particular scholastic skillsets for that. I could use akashic link magic for getting vague impressions of places and things I couldn’t see, which been very useful in my infiltration of the Commissary, but that was the full extent of my ability in the matter.

“Is that so…” I couldn’t see her in the dark, but imagined her considering Vahro some more.

“Can you remember anything more about the people who took Marelle?”

Tatiana thought for a long moment, but apologized. “No. I’m sorry my lady. If only I had had my full faculties then. I was completely useless when it mattered.”

“Are you suffering any long-term effects?”

“Not that I can tell.”

“That is good then. We’ll simply have to rescue Marelle from here.”

“I had thought so too, but… do you have a plan, my lady?”

“In the morning I’ll ask Vahro about people in embroidered robes. Admittedly today was the first day in that town, but I’ve not seen anyone else in such clothes. If he has an idea of who they could be, then we’ll have a lead. If not…” I considered. “How good is your mind transfer magic?”

“Passable, but I hate doing it, and it might not be very effective especially if I don’t know any of the language.” It was a fair point, I mentally conceded. Even if you could forcibly pull knowledge from someone’s mind, all knowledge had a context of understanding that was not necessarily shared.

“It can be a backup plan if nothing else. By the way…”

“Yes?” Tatiana asked.

“The hammer at your side…”

“Ah…yes. Well, I thought I’d need travel funds and it was an emergency so I just…took some.”

I frowned while puzzling that out. “You…robbed the bank but instead of simply carrying out the money, you recombined a pile of gold coins into a hammer.”

“Yes.” She seemed modestly proud of herself of the effort even while being abashed at admitting to a crime. I couldn’t see it now but I tried to remember the size of the hammer and how many small golds would fit into it. It had to be hundreds, a sum that would have supported a family for years at least, perhaps even a decade. I say would have, because one of my prior observations had been that a large silver did not, in fact, have the same material by weight as ten small silvers. This meant the value of the coinage was not derived from the material value, but from something else. In other words, in her ignorance of this fact Tatiana had reduced a vast fortune—a minor warchest, really—into a hunk of metal.

I pointed this out, somewhat more politely, but then I heard a smug laugh. “That’s why I kept a few.” A moment later something landed in my lap. I took it in hand and it was definitely a coin and about the right size for a small gold.

“You mean to say you can reproduce this?” I asked somewhat incredulously. I had known Tatiana for three years now but most matter manipulation I’d seen her do was more…blunt.

“It’d take time, but yes.”

“How much time?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t looked closely at it yet. Maybe an hour?”

I was definitely impressed. For better or worse we had a fortune in ill-gotten gains. There were still two problems. The first was, by virtue of it being a fortune, the crime was similarly significant. Tatiana would have difficulties moving around in public, not to mention the search for her may be scaled up. The second was that small golds were individually lots of money and not easily fungible. That’s why Vahro had taken the time to exchange his one small gold for a letter of credit rather than carrying it around. Much simpler to keep silver on hand.

Still, there were ways. “That will work then. We’ll figure out the rest tomorrow. Unfortunately I don’t think I can easily make it back to town right now, even if that were wise. Vahro,” I addressed the sleeping wolf-man. I heard him shift slightly. “Tatiana and I will sleep now. Is that ok?”

“????? ????? ok. We’ll ????? Thrush tomorrow.” I heard that he included himself in that. It wasn’t my intention to keep him away from his comfy bedroll, but I was grateful.

“Thank you,” I replied to him. To Tatiana, I said, “let’s get some rest. We’ll consider how best to find Marelle tomorrow.”

After I found the comfiest position I could find against the tree and settled for the night, there was a third problem, I realized. Tatiana—and by extension me, since I wasn’t going to suggest we return the gold—would probably now have the status of highly sought-after criminals, and it was not fair to drag Vahro into that. I had wanted to learn a little more of the language at least before parting, but tomorrow we would go our separate ways.

[Expendable]

 

I've read books where it alternated between narration and first person, and one where the first person alternated between two characters. At this stage, you can still experiment a bit, but get it sorted out.

You don't like first person switching perspectives?
I've read some books that do that intentionally. By the Grace of the Gods LN is written in first person but switches characters, and I think it does that alright.
So far that's my intention right now.

I like first person, they make the reading a bit more intimate. And where the leads switch, it's like seeing the characters from someone else's viewpoint.

All I'm saying is if you want to do First Person, you're going to have to do some editing on the prior chapters.

 

I think you may have started the story too far-forward, jumping into the action without showing what these persons' lives are like before they cross-over. You can't miss what you don't know about, right?

I understand that, but it's an isekai base. The characters' pasts are definitely relevant but I want the frame of the story to start where it does, since it's not just a character exercise. That said, I didn't feel like doing something flimsy like Truck-kun and made it more interesting and gave at least Jess some strong motivations but even so. I think it's outside the scope. I figure just like you learn about someone over time, the characters' pasts can be revealed through the context of the present. I did start to do that in this next chapter.
Vahro on the other hand...honestly I still need to come up with his backstory lol.

I read a story that started with the end. The evil robot is destroyed, the man is rewarded with access to a professor's brain and invents a lot of stuff that makes him incredibly wealthy.

Then came the middle, where the guy's sunglasses gets knocked off as he walks through a beaded curtain, then another robot explains to the man what's going on. He then finds himself being chased by the evil robot.

Finally, we read the beginning - and we find out the evil robot is in fact the professor's companion, and he's warning him to be careful of the second robot, because if those sunglasses get knocked off, he'll be hypnotized by it.

What was really a very ordinary story became an "ah hah!" moment because of the order.

But really, my thing is knowing a bit about people's lives before it all goes crazy helps you to get invested in them.

[Momogari]

But really, my thing is knowing a bit about people's lives before it all goes crazy helps you to get invested in them.

Maybe that'd be good. I'll think about making an earlier chapter just for Vahro.

[Momogari]

I'm glad you talked me into that Ex. I enjoyed coming up with and writing Vahro's backstory

It'll affect how I edit chapters 1 and 2 later... I guess that's my next task.


Prologue

  Spoiler:  

In the absence of plans, one seems to stick to whatever pattern they have developed.

My name was Vahro, and I supposed I was an adventurer. Supposed, because it hadn’t been my plan. At first, hunting monsters in dangerous regions had simply been the most expedient way to earn money quickly. Hunting monsters was, for most people, not a thing one simply decides to do on a whim, though in my case it was simply a good fit for my natural abilities, because I was full beastkin. My kind were rare, but were always blessed with speed and strength. Myself, being a wolf, was the perfect form as a hunter. So when the need for a vast amount of money reared in front of me, I decided I’d hunt beasts for a while.

I had thought earning the money I would need would take only a year. And perhaps, if I always lucked out in the beasts I found, and if I didn’t find I needed supplies and tools that I hadn’t thought of when I started, that could have been true. But it hadn’t been a year. Over the course of these three and a half years, I’d gotten better at it. I knew where to find valuable monsters. I was more efficient in butchering them. I knew the best places to sell each type of material. The times I had accepted escort jobs for adventuring groups, I learned about other rare resources that I could collect myself. Herbs, gems, minerals, and other natural resources that were scattered in the wild areas of the world but were normally too dangerous to obtain.

I was born as an orphan. For whatever reason my parents had left me on the steps of a village church. A nun by the name of Milne had given me my name, which apparently meant “Wild One” in the language of the elves. I grew up in the church, and I treasured my time there. There were two other orphans there, one older girl and one younger boy, and all three of us joined the other village children in their games. At the age of ten I was told to work, and the church arranged for me to become a delivery boy for the village store. Each day I would take a cart and transport goods. To a farm, from a farm. To the mine, from the mine. I was paid in food and clothes for the church, and outside my deliveries I still had lots of free time. At thirteen years old I had been given my first task that would take me outside the village, and when I first heard it I was bursting with excitement.

“Vahro,” the store manager had said, “you’ll wear this hat when you get near Felds.” He handed me a straw hat with a blue ribbon.

I wrinkled my snout at it. “No way! That’s super uncool.”

“No,” the thick-set man said sternly behind his black mustache. “You will wear it.”

“That’s a girl hat! I ain’t gonna wear that.”

The man look flustered. “No, look. Just when you get into town, ok? After you’ve made your delivery you can take it off. But you need to wear it so people in Felds know you’re from Gransin and there on business. It’s…yes, well, it’s a special hat, you see.”

I scowled at him, not believing it. “A special hat? That?”

“…Yes, that’s right. They’ll recognize this hat. It’s important that you wear it. Just when you get into town. Can you do that?”

I took the hat reluctantly, but I had no intention of wearing it. It was my first time visiting another village. No way was I going to wear something so uncool. I mean, other villages had girls. The girls here were no good since I’d grown up with them and most were older and teased me anyway, but when I was old enough I’d marry a girl in another village probably. One of the older boys who used to watch me got married just a few months ago, and now they had a house together in the village. So in order to get a great wife that everyone would be envious of, I had to give a good first impression.

I knew I was different from other kids. I wasn’t the smartest kid by far, but being a wolf beastkin gave me strength and speed, and the other boys admired my muscles. It being my natural strength, of course it would be the thing I’d want to showcase.

And so it was that I reached the village of Felds with my shirt tied around my waist and a confident smirk on my jowl and my self-fashioned necklace of mountain cat teeth hanging against my bare chest. I had merely found the skeleton, granted, but it made me cool.

The hat, of course, was in the cart with the delivery of nails.

The villagers came out to meet me. They must have all been working hard, since they carried shovels and pitchforks. I was about to ask them the way to the mayor’s house when one of them attacked me!

“Whoa!” I cried as I avoided the shovel aimed at my head. “What was that for?!”

“It talks?” someone further back said.

“It’s a monster.”

“Go inside. Stay back.”

I snarled. “What are you people talking about? I’m not a monster. I’m a person!”

“There’s nothing for you here,” the man who had swung the shovel at me said. “Get lost!”

“Wha—” and I avoided a stabbing pitchfork. “No, I’m supposed to make a delivery. I’m from Gransin!”

“Huh?”

“What’s he talking about?”

“Come to think of it, there was such a child…”

“Beastkin?”

Just then I remembered the hat. “Wait, hang on. I forgot about this.” I sidled to the cart with my hands up and pulled out the straw hat with a blue ribbon. “See? We’re good now, right?”

The lead man frowned. “What are you talking about? It’s just a hat.”

My stomach dropped. “Uh…well. I just have a delivery to make. Nails. I was told to take them to the mayor’s house.”

One of the men looked into the cart that had four big boxes of nails. “We did have a nail shortage…”

The villagers relaxed. “Alright. But you’re…you’re really from Gransin?”

“Yes!”

The men looked me up and down and I felt a vague sense of disapproval.

“Why did they send you?” one of them asked.

“Uh…well…because…I’m…the delivery boy?” I didn’t understand the question.

The man who had first attacked me scratched his head. “Well, sorry for attacking you. I’ll take you to the mayor’s house.” He turned and told everyone it was fine and that I was just a delivery boy. I was relieved, but before I started rolling my cart, he frowned at me and told me to put my shirt on. Feeling as though I was being scolded, I did as I was told and followed him.

So much for impressing girls, I grumbled internally.

I lied to the storekeeper and said I had worn the hat and that I had no trouble in Felds. The way he had sat back down in obvious relief made me realize he had suspected trouble from the start. The hat was not a special hat. It was just a hat with a ribbon. It was uncool, and girly, and probably that was the point. I would have been more an oddity than a threat had I walked into Felds wearing it.

When I had reflected on that incident, I realized that my peaceful life in the village of Gransin was an outlier. The people in the village had all watched me grow up from an infant, so I was just another kid to them, even if I was full beastkin. But full beastkin were rare and so were often mistaken as monsters, just as I had been that time. After that I stopped wearing the cat-tooth necklace too. At the time I thought it was fitting for my name “Wild One”, but the more I realized how people react to my body I couldn’t help but wonder if the name was a mockery as well. The nun who named me, Milne, had left for a convent years ago, so I couldn’t ask her. She never felt any different from any other sisters at the church—there were two or three at any one time—so it wasn’t like I had a special connection to her apart from her being the one who happened to give me a name. I wondered if, when she first saw me, she saw a monster as well and decided to name me according to her perception without any deep thinking on it.

Actually, I wasn’t the only beastkin in the village. One of the miners was a half-beastkin named Rory. He had cat ears, whiskers, and a tail, but he never seemed bothered by being different. I didn’t know him very well, and my actions in Felds felt shameful to me since I hadn’t followed instructions and then lied about it later, and asking awkward questions about beastkin would probably mean telling the truth about what happened, so I didn’t talk to him about it, either. Besides, he wasn’t full beastkin anyway. He probably never had trouble being mistaken for a monster.

The years after that I took other trips to other villages, and every time I would ask to borrow the blue-ribboned hat. I never gave away that I knew it was just a hat, and it definitely felt silly wearing it, but the value in it was unmistakeable. There were still incidents, but as long as I wore the hat initially and was nice and polite no one would attack me. Revisiting a village I had visited before went much smoother and Felds, at least, ended up being a frequent destination and I always wore my shirt—I was civilized, after all—but the third time I visited I left the hat in the cart and the only uncomfortable reception I received was intense stares.

Shortly after I turned sixteen, one day I was dropping off nails and picking up fabric in the village of Ruitin, which I had visited once before more than a year ago. Ruitin was a full day’s walk from Gransin, and the arrangement with the Gransin store in such cases was that I would receive lodging, meals, and a packed lunch for the return trip. It was dark and the nighttime crickets were already chirping when I finished concluding the fabric pickup, and, having been here before, I asked if the floor of the head weaver’s living room was where I’d be sleeping again.

“Oh,” she said, “no. Not this time. I actually arranged a different house for you. I’ll take you there in a moment. I have to settle my baby first.”

After a few minutes wait the weaver took me across the village to another house and knocked on the door. I was still wearing the blue-ribboned hat, along with my large backpack that had carried the nails here and now held the fabric to take back to Gransin.

The door opened and I blinked in surprise at the furry ears in the doorway. Those were wolf ears, and the man was half-beastkin. It was the closest to my own species I had ever encountered.

“Ah, you’re here. Come in, please. Thank you Maria, I’ll take it from here.”

I thanked the weaver and entered the house.

“My name is Hutan. Welcome.”

“Ah, thank you. I’m Vahro,” I stammered back.

“Vahro. Nice to meet you. I planned on having you sleep on the couch. Hopefully that’s ok. We don’t actually have any spare beds.”

“Oh no, that’s more than fine. Thank you.” Often I didn’t even get a couch. Hutan was so nice. I usually expected people to flinch back at meeting me for the first time, but he hadn’t reacted at all. I smiled.

“We already had dinner of course, but I had my wife make extra. Just set your things down over there and I’ll set you a place at the table.”

“Thank you very much,” I replied. Setting my pack in the corner and placing the hat on top of it, I moved to the table. Hutan uncovered an iron pan and took it to the fireplace where a fire was burning and set it into the wire holder to reheat the food. He then retrieved a metal bowl and a spoon for me, and I thanked him again.

To my surprise he sat down across from me while my meal was reheated. “So you’re a traveling salesman of some sort?”

“No, I just carry things. I work for a store in Gransin.”

“Gransin. Is that another town around here?”

“Yes, about a day’s walk west.”

Hutan nodded. “I haven’t been out that way yet. I’ll have to go see it sometime.”

That struck me as strange. “Uh…why?”

“Hmm? Why not? Is there nothing interesting there?”

“Uh…I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, Gransin doesn’t get any visitors that I know of, so I guess that means it’s not interesting.”

Hutan laughed. “Fair enough. I guess you’re probably the rarest thing there,” he said jovially but that laid my ears back involuntarily. He was nice and I liked him, but most people didn’t point out my race so bluntly. It felt awkward to me, but I still had something I felt like asking him.

“Umm…”

“Hmm? What is it?”

“I’m sorry for asking, and…you know, like, you don’t have to answer but… do… do you… have you had problems, like, being beastkin…?”

“Mm? No.” the briefness of his response stopped me short. He said it casually as if it wasn’t any big deal. I chastised myself for bothering with it. Of course he wouldn’t. He was only half. But Hutan seemed to want to question it further. “Well, not that I don’t understand, but your family does ok, right? Why are you worried?”

“Mm…I don’t have a family, actually.”

Hutan was surprised. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s fine.”

Hutan crossed his arms and stared at me casually for a moment. “Are there no other beastkin at all then, where you’re from?”

“Uh…well, there’s a half cat-kin, but that’s it.”

“Have you ever met another full beastkin?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Ahh. Well I was a mercenary, so I did a fair bit of traveling in the past. I’ve met several, so it’s not a new thing for me.”

My eyes widened. “Oh. What kind of beastkin did you meet?”

Hutan laughed at my excitement. “Haha. Well I worked for the Red Door, so my commander was that Shirokichi, for one.” Hutan obviously expected me to recognize those names, but I didn’t. “But I also met others here and there. Met a chimp-man in Vesteria, uh… a lizard couple in the south wetlands. A fox woman in Octavius. Hoo, I’ll tell you now, be real careful around fox women.”

“Have you ever met another wolf beastkin? A full one I mean.”

Hutan shook his head. “No, you’re the first.”

Just then the front door opened. “We’re home. Ah, he’s he…” the human woman’s eyes widened when she saw me. Yes, that was a more normal reaction.

I quickly stood up and bowed. “My name is Vahro. Thank you for having me.”

“Oh…forgive me. It’s no trouble at all,” Hutan’s wife replied, though when I looked up I saw someone else had entered too. A teenage girl with gray hair, imperious yellow eyes and beautiful gray wolf ears stood next to her mother. I realized I was staring when Hutan cleared his throat. “This is my wife Portenne, and my daughter Lumine.”

“Ah, yes, nice to meet you,” I bowed again awkwardly.

“Hmph,” Lumine replied and haughtily walked past and into the hall without a word. Even so, I was glad I wasn’t wearing the hat.

“How did it go?” Hutan asked his wife and moved to hug her.

“No problems. I’m sure the boy has a mild illness and just needs rest.”

“Well that’s good then. I’m sure they appreciate you being on call all the same. I’m sure you’re tired. I’ll be in in a moment.” Hutan kissed his wife before she took her leave, and I sat back down as I saw Hutan taking the iron pan from the fire. He poured a thick meat stew into my bowl, and my stomach growled in anticipation as it smelled really good. I dug in immediately, but was a bit ungraceful having not let it cool down first. Hutan gave me glass of water and I drank it thankfully.

“This is really good. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he replied with a smile.

He sat in silence for a moment while I ate, but I felt bad thinking he was waiting on me. “Umm…I don’t mean to keep you here, if you wanted…”

“Oh, no. Sorry. I was just thinking I should continue our conversation earlier, but you were really enjoying that stew, so I thought I’d wait.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to remember what we had been talking about. His daughter? No, he hadn’t mentioned her to me beyond the greeting. I couldn’t remember our conversation before that.

“Are you searching for your parents, then?” he asked.

My mind took several convoluted steps to try to remember why he was asking that, but I slowly put together the sequence of our conversation thus far. “Oh. Well, not really. I never actually thought about finding them.”

“Is that so? Hmm.”

“I just…” I didn’t want to come out and say I was uncomfortable being so different. Not to a stranger. Especially someone nice like Hutan. I felt like I’d be intruding and taking advantage of his welcome. “I was just curious, is all.”

He gave a soft smile. “I suppose that makes sense. Well, you should travel some, then. You’ll meet all kinds of people in the world, some you wouldn’t even call people until they started talking.”

“Really? Like what?”

Hutan laughed. “Well, maybe I’ll visit your town someday and tell you all sorts of stories. I imagine I’d be staying up all night if I let you talk me into it.”

“Oh. Yes, I’m sorry. I…” would Hutan really visit? “I would like to hear them.”

He nodded as he stood up, and I think it was an agreement. “We’ve laid out a blanket and pillow for you on the couch. You can just leave that bowl by the door when you’re done, and I’ll wash it in the morning. The latrine is out back, just go out the door and around to your left. Is there anything else you’ll be needing for now?”

“Ah, thank you. No, I’m sure I’ll be fine. Thank you. Goodnight.”

Hutan nodded and disappeared. I went back to my stew. It really was delicious.

When I was done I considered leaving the bowl by the door as suggested, but I decided I’d go out and wash it myself. The washstation was in the front of the house, and was the same as the one I’d seen everywhere—a bucket with a spout on one side, hung on a hook. I tilted the bucket to pour water in the bowl, swirled it and poured out the leavings into the bed of weeds beneath, then added more water to scrub it.

The door opened and I saw the daughter Lumine step outside. She had wore a robe and sandals and had a cup in her hand, and stopped when she saw me.

“Uh, hello. Go ahead,” I said awkwardly, stepping aside from the bucket. She stepped off the stone step that led into the house and came to the water bucket. She smelled like heather brush, and it was intoxicating. She poured water into her cup and drank once, then poured some more. She then stepped back and I cut in to rinse out the bowl. “Where should I leave this?” I asked.

“Just right there,” she replied. I put it on the stone lining of the weedbed. Lumine hadn’t gone inside yet though, and was looking at me, her cup of water in hand. “Are you a mercenary?” she asked.

“My eyes widened. “Uh, no. No, I’m just…a traveling salesman,” I lied as naturally as I breathed. Or I hoped I did.

“Hmm…” she was nonplussed.

“Come to think of it, your dad did mention he’s a mercenary.”

“Was. Now he’s a farmer.” She said it somewhat bitterly, so I guess she didn’t like that.

“Oh. Do you…do you like mercenaries?”

“Huh? Not really,” she replied coldly.

“Oh…” I didn’t know what to say, and normally this was where I’d politely excuse myself, but…I wanted to keep her talking. “Um, what did your dad do for…for the Red Door?” I pulled the name from earlier, feeling lucky I still remembered it.

“He was a saboteur. Sneaking into castles, poisoning the guards, sabotaging the gates, that kinda thing.”

I was surprised. I didn’t know there were such jobs. “That sounds very dangerous.”

“Well, yeah. That’s why mom convinced him to retire and move us all to this ass end of nowhere.”

This village? It was larger than Gransin. I realized Gransin was probably included in being the ass end of nowhere.

“You don’t like it here, then?”

She scowled. “Of course not. There’s nothing here but fields and dirt. The city…is this even a city? It’s tiny. And there’s no plumbing!”

“Uh…well, yes.” I had no idea what plumbing was, but I played it cool. “But it has its charms. My town has a waterfall near it. It’s a great spot.”

She frowned at me. “Your town…aren’t you a traveling salesman?”

Urk. “Ah, well yes, but you know, every salesman has to have a base of operations, right?”

“Is that how it is?”

“Well, for me anyway, I guess. Haha.”

“Hmm. You look big and dangerous, but I guess you’re just a country peasant after all.”

That hurt. Lumine turned towards the village center and drank some more water as I fumed over my singed pride. “I can be dangerous too, of course.”

Lumine looked at me, considering. “Yes, I’m sure you could…” she looked pensive for a moment, and turned back to look at the village again. “I didn’t mean to disparage you. And for the record, it’s not like I have daddy issues. I lived with my mom alone in the Capital while dad was out gallivanting around the continent. Who knows how many other women he had while mom was waiting at home, you know? I don’t need men to be dangerous. I don’t blame her for convincing him to retire. I just don’t see why we couldn’t have stayed in the Capital. I had friends there. There was lots of things to do. Here…it’s so boring. And dirty.”

Her opening up to me made me lose my anger. “I can see how that would be upsetting.”

She turned back to the house. “Sorry for saying strange things.” She went back inside and I stood there for a moment, breathing the scent of her passing.



Over the next few seasons I made every excuse to take trips to Ruitin. The store only sent me there once, but I began requesting two days in a row off just to spend more time with Lumine. Lumine’s mother had her assist with her medical practice, but Lumine had no interest in it and skipped work often. I was more than happy to be an alternative. We would run off into the woods and do nothing in particular—it was more an act of rebellion on her part than an interest in anything else there was to do in the area. I watched her get scolded for skipping work a few times, but it seemed to me there was no fervor behind her mother’s admonitions. Hutan never visited Gransin since I ended up hearing many of his stories when I was invited over for meals, and, while it was too far from Gransin that I could be a regular, they seemed to accept me into their home whenever I came.

I had never felt boredom playing in the woods as a kid, but her attitude for it seemed to be infectious. Between throwing rocks into the meadow pond, complaining about the weather, and making jokes about the other villagers, I heard all about her life in the city, stories about her friends and classes—she had gone to school in the city, but out here her mother was her only teacher. Apparently she was made to study almost every day, much like the nuns had taught me to read when I was younger, but for some reason her mother never demanded Lumine study when I visited, for which I felt I must be the luckiest person alive.

After several months of back and forth trips—which amounted to six or seven trips, really—I had finally resolved to tell her my feelings. I had waited hours for the right moment in mostly silence, and I’m sure I was boring her by that point. We were sitting on a log in front of the pond when I worked up the courage to do it.

“L—Lumine!” her ears twitched. I loved it when her ears twitched. “You know, I’m—I’m really happy when I’m with you. I—”

Lumine looked away uncomfortably. “Vahro, stop.”

“…W-What?” I felt a cold wall looming in front of me.

I couldn’t see her face but she didn’t say anything for a moment, then heaved a heavy sigh, turned around and with a frown she stood up, leaned towards me and kissed me on the forehead. I could almost have died happy then if not for the vague sense that something was wrong. She immediately turned away from me again, standing at the bank. She picked up a rock and threw it in overhand.

“I don’t plan on staying here, Vahro.”

“Mmm…ok?” that didn’t particularly surprise me given how much she always said she hated it.

“As soon as I have a way out of here, I’m going back to the Capital. I don’t care what mom and dad think of it, I’m not going to be stuck in this village for the rest of my life.”

I nodded, smiling. That was very much like Lumine. “I think it’s a wonderful idea. Let’s do it!”

She turned back to me with a confused frown. “What do you mean, ‘let’s do it?’” she mocked. “You’re a delivery boy who doesn’t even get paid for his own work.”

“Uh…” well, she was right, but… “It’s not like I’m gonna do that forever either, you know. I can go to the Capital and work there. What’s the problem?”

“Have you even thought about it? Where would you live?”

“Mmm…” I tried to think of something quick to say but I realized I really hadn’t thought it through at all.

Lumine sighed and turned away again. “I know you like me, Vahro. Dog crap, everyone in the village knows it. You have no idea how much I get teased about it,” she said as she threw another rock into the pond. I laid my ears back in embarrassment. “And…I guess I don’t mind it. I mean, you’re—I like you too. As friends!” she corrected quickly, “—or something! I don’t know. You’re ok. I don’t care how much I’m teased about it.”

While it was a bunch of mixed signals, I couldn’t help but smile at that.

“But it’s not going to happen.”

The pit in my stomach opened up again and I let a long silence draw out.

“Do…do you have a plan for returning to the Capital already?” I finally asked.

“…no,” she said bitterly. “It’s not like I can make my own money out here either.”

“What if you…just asked your parents? You know, ask them if they’d help you move back.”

“…I’ve thought about it,” she admitted.

That wasn’t an answer I was happy hearing either. “Would they?”

“Heh. Probably not.” She whirled around to face me with her hands on her hips. “Besides, even if they did, it wouldn’t include you.”

“Uh…”

“’Oh mommy, daddy, I want to live on my own in the Capital, buy a house for me pretty please? Oh by the way my boyfriend will live with me. That’s no problem, right?’”

“…Would I really be your boyfriend, then?” I asked hopefully.

“No, Vahro,” she rolled her eyes, “because it wouldn’t happen!”

I looked down at the ground in chagrin.

“I don’t even know if they have that kind of money to begin with,” she added.

I frowned. “How much money would…one need to buy a house in the Capital?”

“I guess in reality it’d just be an apartment, but just moving into one…I don’t know. I suppose one large gold would probably be enough.”

My eyes became as big as what I imagined one large golds to be. It was a sum that confounded my imagination. I’d seen a large silver once in my life and had bragged to my friends about it. A large gold was…ten times ten more than that. Could people really have that much money?

I sat heavily on the log, slowly suffocating as the despair set in.

“Well… I mean, it’s not so bad here. Or in Gransin. Maybe…you’ll come to like it?” it was pathetic, and I knew it. Lumine sneered and turned away from me.

I stood up to change her mind before she was completely disgusted with me to consider me any further. “Well, I’ll earn the money, then,” I said with my feelings before my mind could catch up with me.

“And how are you going to do that?” she asked scornfully.

“I’ll be an adventurer,” I said.

“Oh please. Adventuring isn’t easy money either.”

“I know,” I replied, gaining some confidence, “but I’d be better at it than anyone else.”

She looked at me. “Because you’re full beastkin?”

“Yeah. During the fall hunt I killed a giant boar on my own.”

“Really? You never said that.”

“Yeah. I never said it because…” because I’d learned that flaunting my strength made me a monster, and I didn’t want to be a monster to her. “Because there’s no point in bragging about natural abilities. But I do have the strength. And the speed. And the nose. I could track monsters blindfolded if I had to.”

“I guess. But still…”

“What are you worried about?” I asked, strutting over to her full of confidence now. Now I was the man, and I would make her dreams come true.

“I understand you’re strong, but maybe you should take it slower… Ask my dad to teach you how to fight. He probably would.”

That brought me up short. “Actually, I already did…”

“What?! When?”

“When I was here last month.”

“Oh. And what did he say?”

“He said that beyond a certain strength, being able to fight doesn’t actually help you protect the ones you love. He said I already have that much strength, and that’d I’d have no use for what he could teach me. Then he offered to teach me how to farm potatoes.”

“Pfft,” Lumine laughed. Though I was the target of her laughter, I loved her smile too much to not feel glad for it, and I smiled back with butterflies in my stomach. “And do you fancy yourself a potato farmer?”

“Eh, no, I can’t say I do. Though I accepted anyway since I didn’t know how to say no. We ended up talking about potatoes in the field for two whole hours while you were out somewhere helping your mom.”

“Hahaha! My dad is such a loser now! And you’re not much better!”

Ehhhhh… I shook off my sympathetic chuckles and looked at her seriously.

“Lumine.”

“Ahaha…heh. …What?”

“I’m going to be an adventurer. I’m gonna earn money quickly, and I’ll have a large gold before you know it. Then we’ll get a place in the Capital and move there together.”

Lumine actually blushed and looked away. “I… I don’t think you should. Thank you, Vahro. It means a lot to me. But…you should stay here. If you want to live in the Capital someday, then you can slowly work up to it. Find a new job.”

I shook my head. “No, I’ve decided. I’ll do it within a year,” I said, completely seriously.

“I don’t think that’s possible…”

“Well, we’ll see. And…when I do…would you move to the Capital with me?”

In her silence she actually reached out and pinched the front of my shirt between her fingers. “Yes. I’d do anything to get out of here. I’ll go with you.”

I beamed happily and took her hands in mine. “You got it! I’ll have that gold in no time. You’ll see!”

She smiled uneasily back.



I declared my intention to leave the church the next day, announcing that’d I was going to temporarily do some adventuring. I quit my job at the store, and the owner wished me well. Unlike Lumine, the storekeeper seemed to have full confidence in my abilities and happily sent me off with lots of supplies for my journey.

My first trip was to the nearby mountains, where there was said to be middle-strength monsters. The giant boar that I had bested in the fall was still considered a low-ranking monster even if it was bigger than a fully grown man. I hunted 6-legged pumas, lesser wyverns and cragstone eagles, and though it was sometimes dicey, I was proud of my effort. My thought that I was already well on my way to earning a large gold lasted right up until the adventurer’s guild in Felds paid 20 silver for everything I’d harvested. A two month trip for only 20 silver?! I mean yes, that was two large silvers, twice what I had once bragged to my friends about having seen before, but it was a depressingly slim fraction of my goal. I was determined to make progress before I saw her again, so I upped my game and traveled deeper into the mountains, taking two more trips. When I returned from my third expedition, I was wiser and stronger for sure, but a third of the 150 silver I’d earned had gone towards new gear and supplies. Almost a year was over now, and I’d only made a tenth of my target.

Still, after ten months I very much missed Lumine so I went back to Ruitin to visit. She was both surprised and glad to see me, though I could tell some distance had grown between us. I admitted it wasn’t going perfectly well yet, but I knew I was learning quickly and that the next expeditions would go better. I had already decided to make my way to a more dangerous area for greater profit, but I didn’t tell her that. I simply told her it might take another year, but I would have a large gold then.

Another year passed, and I had indeed grown into a reliable hunter. I’d even acted as a guide for another adventuring group once. I visited Ruitin again when I was a third of the way to my target of one large gold. Lumine was growing into a fine woman indeed. I loved her detached air as she listened to my projections with her arms crossed under her breasts. We weren’t children anymore, but that was to be expected. Next year, I’d have a place for her in the Capital and we would get married and live happily ever after. I’d retire from adventuring and find a job in the city, and she could do whatever she wanted.

My plans almost bore fruit the next year and I was 129 silver away from my goal, and I happily reported this to her. Just one last push. I could tell things were awkward between us now, and she hadn’t said much to me, though it seemed like there was something she wanted to say, but there would be time to make up for it. The time I spent away from her simply meant that we would have plenty to talk about and even more to learn about each other when I returned and we left for the Capital.

When I finally achieved my goal, just 6 months later, I immediately went back to Ruitin to announce the good news.

I knocked on the door and Hutan answered to my smiling face. He briefly had a stricken look before smiling and welcoming me inside.

Hutan was genuinely proud of my achievements, and enjoyed swapping stories with me whenever I visited again. We did so this time again—Lumine and her mother weren’t home yet so I spent time catching up with Hutan first. I was telling him about my hunt for a giant kea when his wife came home. I was overjoyed enough to forget my story completely, expecting Lumine to be right behind her. But she wasn’t.

When I asked about her, her mother sighed and told me that Lumine had gotten married and moved away. They had been courting for two years, so it wasn’t a surprise to anyone but me.

In hindsight, I spent a long time blindly chasing a goal without spending much time with the person I was doing it for, and while I couldn’t stop help but cry over it then, I knew I’d brought it on myself. If only I had listened to her when she told me not to go, to take it slower, to find a job and stay in the area. Then I could be her husband, maybe. No. She hadn’t really agreed to anything then either, so it was probably just my wishful thinking, though I do think she really had liked me back then.

That was three months ago now. I had thanked Hutan and his wife and promised I’d come visit again, and I think I meant it—I sort of hoped I didn’t meet Lumine again, but Hutan was still a friend. In any case, it was about the right season for hunting the Aler Forest, and I’d gone there for two summers consecutively now and it was a profitable region. It was the natural destination. Last time I was here I’d found a hunter’s cabin in good condition deep in the forest. It was deeper than most adventuring parties went, but was obviously ruggedly durable and well cared for when people did visit, and was perfect for me. Between that and the variety of profitable resources, perhaps the Aler Forest would be my summer destination for years to come.

[Momogari]

I tried to rewrite chapter 1 but it felt so awkward giving a prologue to one character but not the other, so I ended up writing one for Jess too.

Prologue 2

  Spoiler:  

Nobility clustered around the ballroom. There was a tense edge to the air, but the guests were making a brave face of it. My mother and father were near the center of the room and commanded a sizeable crowd.

“Will you be dancing tonight, my lady?”

I turned to see a young Viscount with wavy blond hair with whom I was acquainted, and nodded with a gracious smile. “Of course, sir Correnne. Times being as they are, I would be remiss not to take the opportunity. The night is young yet, however. I will dance later.”

“Then I will look forward to it. My compliments on the arrangements. Your parents must be very proud.”

“I thank you for your kind words.”

“Has your posting been determined yet?”

“Yes, the Knight Commander brought the summons personally last month. I’ve been assigned a lieutenancy in the 8th regiment.”

“Only a lieutenancy?” he seemed surprised.

“Of course. This is a tradition of House February. We believe to each their merits as they are earned. The Knight Commander did express concerns given our current needs, but I think that is all the more reason. The stratagems of the textbook and the chaos of battle are two things not easily married, as my father likes to say.”

“He is a wise man. Speaking of marriage—”

“My fiancée is but three months dead, sir Correnne,” I interjected, “Once we win this war I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to consider my future plans.”

“Your confidence gives me great heart, my lady. I will not further monopolize your time. It is good to see you, and I’ll look for you later if you would do me the favor of a dance?”

“I would be delighted,” I lied.

I left the viscount and sidled over to a group of noble daughters, some of whom were my friends. Being not only the ostensible host, but also the highest ranking figure of the group, they all greeted me politely. There was one younger girl I had never met. She was like 14 and only recently entered society. “It is also a pleasure to meet you. Your family is well renowned for its defensive spellwork. How are you enjoying the academy?”

“Very much, honorable lady. I will be most glad to return when its doors are open to me again.”

I tilted my head. “Open to you? I’m afraid I must have missed something.”

Another explained. “Years three and below have been sent home. The upper classes are still being taught for now.”

“Is that so. Well, I’m sure we’ll be able to get fully back into swing in no time,” I said smiling at the young girl.

“Do you really think so? They say the heroes have reached Treston already,” one of my friends asked. That one was a little dense reading the mood sometimes.

“Ara, do you doubt not only my abilities, but Lady Apouaire as well? It’s been decided that Katherene here will join my squad in the defense of the Empire.” It was both response but also a deft change of subject.

“Truly?!”

“Congratulations, Lady Apouaire.”

“Should we be relieved or frightened?” someone more casually said, and we laughed. Katherene was an excellent offensive mage as long as she could target accurately, and neither side of the fact had gone unnoticed at the academy.

“I for one, am not worried,” I responded lightly before Katherene could voice her peevish indignation, “The heroes will sorely regret not having the ability to make it this far before our generation came into its own. If you’ll excuse me, ladies.”

My father had told me to expect this—indeed, he said it was the very reason we must not to fail to hold my eighteenth birthday party as planned. As someone who was now being introduced as an adult member of my house, I had taken the responsibilities for all of its organization, though that’s not to say I didn’t listen to my father tell me what the primary goals of the house would be. They were, in a simplification, to reassure our vassals. The Empire was panicking, and panicked leaders could not be relied upon. Not to mention, the lower houses supplied most of our military’s mages. Magic was, by its difficulty, the realm of those with the time to learn it, and so everyone of any social standing was compelled to attend the academy.

There was also mandatory military service, and had been as long as I had been alive, though in recent years it had been increased from three years being mandatory to four. The service was mandatory for both men and women, though whether that was as a mage or as a knight was left to aptitude and preference. Women tended to prefer magic and men tended to prefer knighthood, and my all-female mage squad that had just been formed was not terribly surprising.

My father had retired from military service a bit before the year, after serving a respectable 22 years. The reason was the death of the former duke, my grandfather that forced my father to don the mantle and its responsibilities of the February dukedom, but he was a military man at heart. He had married into the family, but upheld its military legacy proudly. I myself would not simply serve the minimum, but hone my magic as an officer of the Imperial Army for years to come. Some women left the service after getting married, but I would not. My recently departed fiancée, though I hadn’t known him that well, understood this as being part of the February legacy, though I wouldn’t necessarily get the same understanding from the next one.

Just as I continued putting on a brave show for the peers of my generation, Duke February did the same for their parents and grandparents. And it had plenty of weight coming from a respected military leader, though I couldn’t help but feel we were barely holding back the tide.



A week later I was in my father’s study. I was due to leave the province tomorrow to answer a summons from the regiment. My servants were currently packing both mine and their possessions.

“What are our chances, really?” I asked the former commander.

He glowered seriously. “Honestly, I’m a bit worried. The Capital still has plenty of strength, but I would have said the same for the places that have already fallen. There’s a momentum to the invasion that I don’t understand. I’ve been considering petitioning the Emporer to allow me to temporarily return to duty.”

That surprised me. “Surely it’s not so dire as that. Who would run the duchy in your absence?”

“Oh, your mother would be fine. Just because she prefers to distance herself from politics doesn’t mean she isn’t capable. Or what, are you afraid of me being your superior?”

I smiled. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy sufficient discipline without you, yes,” I said jokingly. In truth I believed I could stand to learn more from him, but he needed to stay here.

He chuckled. “I see you’ve had enough of me. Well, maybe I’ll stay here a bit longer,” the duke said. Just then the door opened and my mother walked in. “This may be out of the way of the heroes’ march,” he continued while smiling at her, “but there’s no reason they might not divert here to cut the Empire in two.”

“Are you two speaking of dangerous things again, dear? I fear for our little flower,” she said, wrapping her arms around me from behind my chair. She hugged me close and I could smell her perfume of gardenias.

“I will be fine, mother. I have excellent subordinates.”

“Mm,” she murmured noncommittally. It was a strange reaction and I waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t. She hugged me tighter.

“Jess,” she said. “Where are your loyalties?”

I frowned. “To the Empire.”

“In that case, will you promise me one thing?”

“What?”

“In the unlikely event that the Emporer were to die, I want you to come back here immediately.”

Her words chilled me. I opened my voice to rebuke it but my father spoke first. “Vivienne. That is not appropriate,” he said sternly.

My mother sighed. “I suppose it’s not. But I still want to hear it.”

Duke February made to argue further but she shot him a cold glare in return. He took a breath with his brows lowered in anger, but left it alone.

My mother was worried. I wanted to reassure her. I would not lie to either of them, but… “Mother. Of all the time I have spent elsewhere, I treasure my time here the most. This is my home. Our earth answers its bond in service, duty, and honor to the Emporer because that is its service, duty, and honor to our home. Of course I’ll come back.”

She laughed softly. I didn’t think she was reassured very much, but she accepted it. “As long as you come back.”

My father’s gaze was one of both happiness and pride. “Go with honor, Jessimus Destrelle.”

I smiled back. “Of course.”



Three months later, the Empire fell.